What is 3D printing good for right now? You've seen the movies of printing those little parts and can instantly grasp the manufacturing implications. Maybe you've seen a few cute consumer decorations and jewelry. Now, as Chris Velazco of TechCrunch points out, 3D printing company Shapeways is after helping its clients print something on an entirely different plane: money.

"Shapeways notes on its official blog that the platform’s 8,000 shop owners made “nearly $500,000 in profits” last year, and CEO Peter Weijmarshausen told Forbes recently that he expects to see the first Shapeways millionaire some time next year. That said, Shapeways isn’t without competition — players like Cubify have marketplaces of their own (though arguably Cubify’s main focus is on selling its own 3D printers), and upstarts like Azavy are gearing up to throw hats into the 3D-printing ring."

Of course in the process, they're printing money for themselves as well, raising $6.2 million in series B funding, and building a factory on Long Island. What's driving this is their new Rest-based API and dev portal. The API features finer grained controls and real-time pricing. The goal is to spur a host of new creative apps built on top of it.

Peer Index API Update: Turning Influence into Affluence

Got influence? Get discounts. That's the premise of PeerIndex, which has updated its API with the aim of attracting new partners in the social analytics field. For consumers, it's simple: you get a peer index or PI score. The higher the score, the greater the range of discounted items available for purchase.
London-based PeerIndex just updated its API to version 3 to give others access to the data. According to Nick Summers of The Next Web, PeerIndex and its partners use that data and score to sell their own products,

"To date, more than 800 companies have partnered with PeerIndex to take advantage of its personal influence scores – otherwise known as the PeerIndex or PI. Notable partners that have applied the API to their own products include Social Bakers, Social Bro and MarketMeSuite."

Greater influence translates into greater discounts, something that, in a much more sinister way, goes back to ancient times: monarchs got great deals. Today, the consumer is king. The greater your influence score, the more companies want YOU touting their products.